Something Shoved Up Your Nose? How to Get it Out

I remember when my lil’ sis shoved a bead up her nose, and when my cousin decided a dried pea was best at home up her nostril. Whatever reason little kids have for shoving things up their noses, it’s still a fairly serious situation. Knowing what to do when a foreign object wanders up the nose is the best way to avoid the parental freak out that usually goes along with it. Here’s what to do for a foreign object in the nose, and how to remove it.

First thing you should do is calm down or quit laughing, whichever method you use to deal with watching your child walk up to you with a bulbous nostril. The second thing you should do is to blow out gently from the nostril that is affected and has the foreign object in it. Plug the other nostril so you can get proper pressure. Don’t push on or at the foreign object with your fingers or a cotton swab. Simply gently blow the object out until it’s visible. Be careful not to breathe in through the nostril or blow too hard, which can cause the foreign object to get even more stuck.

Take tweezers and pull at the foreign object until it’s removed from the nose. If it’s visible but won’t dislodge, try blowing gently out the nostril and using tweezers to pull at the foreign object at the same time until it comes out of the nose. If the object is more solid, you can help coax it out by gently (very gently) pushing in a downward motion above the nostril to get the object moving. However, don’t push too hard- if it doesn’t move with gently urging, don’t keep trying. Try blowing the nose again through the nostril affected (plug the other nostril) and see if this dislodges the object.

If nothing you do works to get the foreign object out, or for some reason the object moves up further in the nose or is causing serious discomfort, seek emergency care. But you should be able to remove the foreign object from the nose successfully, and if it’s a child who is the victim, it likely won’t be the last time this happens. For some reason, this just seems to be a kid thing, a right of passage or something. Don’t let the object just sit there if you can’t get it out and just expect it to pop out on its own. If you can’t get the object out of the nose by bed-time, then you need to seek emergency care, no matter how odd it seems.

Source:

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/first-aid/FA00054


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